


take my hand and let me follow

by Nautica_Dawn



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 06:44:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nautica_Dawn/pseuds/Nautica_Dawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regardless of the world, they always have a story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. lie to me

She runs through the October rain, one destination in mind. She runs through the October rain because she has nothing else to do and there's this feeling in her heart that makes her blood hum and her bones ring so loud she can hear it and it's driving her mad.

It started last year. The insanity that's been eating away at her heart, that is. Sometimes it's so bad it hurts. Other times it's like this. She can't sit still and she just needs to run, to feel the wind her hair and the earth spinning beneath her feet.

It started last year. It was her first year of college and she met this loud boy named Naruto. All she'd been looking for was someone to talk to, but then Naruto grabbed her arm and dragged her down the hall.

And she met him. She doesn't know if she should thank the blonde for introducing them or if she should strangle the boy, but she met him and that one moment when Naruto dragged her down the hall has changed her life in ways she never imagined possible.

He's all she can think about and it's driving her mad. She wants to scream at him sometimes because he's driving her mad. He's falling all over her thoughts, splattering them with bits of him that she can't wash away.

She hates it. She wants to hate him but she can't seem to. She doesn't think she'll ever be able to hate him. He's too ingrained into the lines of her heart by this point.

His name is Sasuke and she is running barefoot through the October rain to reach him. She has nothing else to do but run to him because she can hear him breaking, knew it was happening when she got that phone call from Naruto, and she knows she has to get to him. This has been coming for so long, Naruto tells her. She trusts his word because he has known Sasuke his entire life and so he knows all the damage the dark boy is suffering from.

That phone call that she so hated told her more than she thought possible. Naruto has told her about the darkness in the Uchiha family. She is afraid now, because she doesn't know what is going to happen.

She knows about Itachi now.

The name has never come up before, nor has it ever been mentioned that Sasuke isn't an only child. Sakura knows she hates the man, though she has never met him. Likely never will at this rate and that's okay. She isn't sure she wants to meet him. After what he's done, how he has broken this boy devouring her thoughts, she thinks she would try to kill him if she ever met him.

She can feel it pulling on her heart, the knowledge of what has happened. With one son gone, the one remaining must be better. Sasuke must be better. She knows this and knows that everyone who knows what has happened knows this and she hates it.

She hates it because Sasuke is Sasuke. He is nothing else. It's horrible to expect him to be anything but because now he's breaking apart beneath the crushing of the sudden expectations.

It's Friday night. She thinks this is criminal because Fridays are for other things. F is for "friends" and "fun" and all that shit she doesn't know about. Friday isn't for running through the October rain to a boy she knows in a way she's never known anyone else.

Naruto is outside their apartment; smile gone and blue eyes so dark she can't tell them from the stormy sky. His white shirt is plastered to his skin, the thin fabric doing nothing to protect him. She has never seen him like this and she knows the seriousness doesn't suit him. The fear and worry stop tugging at her heart and turn to tearing it instead.

"Where is he?" she rasps, her breath gone with the raindrops falling past her.

"His room," he responds, finally looking at her, "It's bad, Sakura."

He's not using the honorific. The seriousness of what is happening finally sinks in and she shudders, "You really think I can do anything?"

"I hope so."

He says he's hoping. He's not saying he knows or he thinks. He doesn't have a reason to think she'll be able to help but he's called her regardless because, she realizes, she's all that's left. She's the last line of defense before his best friend—his  _brother_ —is lost to that darkness.

She drifts past Naruto, rushing into the apartment complex and skidding through the stairs and halls until she's through the open door. She has only been there once before but she knows where he is, even if she's not really looking around her. She can feel him and that's all that matters.

Naruto was right.

It is bad.

He stands in the middle of what was once his bedroom. She remembers that it was perfectly tidy last time. Now it's unrecognizable. Things are torn and broken and everything is scattered everywhere. He is a storm and this is the damage he is leaving behind.

"Sasuke?" her voice is so tiny, she thinks, but she can't seem to speak any other way. She has this irrational fear that if she speaks any louder he will break.

She doesn't like seeing him this way. He just stands there with his dark head low. He looks at her briefly, crushing her heart and emptying her lungs with that one glance.

He looks dead.

She almost wonders what it was his father said to him. She might just hate him more than she hates Itachi. Fathers aren't supposed to kill their sons so spectacularly. Fathers can be distant, but they should never do this.

Sakura takes a step forward, ignoring the way the rainwater is still slipping down her body like blood falling from the hole opening up in her chest, "Sasuke?"

He still won't say anything and that scares her more than anything. He is usually silent, yes, but there is never this air of death accompanying it. She needs him to say anything; just something that will reassure her that he is still alive and this isn't destroying his humanity.

She steps up until she's close enough to touch him without trying. The humming in her blood and the ringing in her bones is deafening now, screaming at her that everything is wrong and there is nothing she can do to fix it. How is she supposed to? He knows more about her than she can imagine and she knows nothing about him. He won't give her the chance to find out.

He doesn't like to be touched, she knows, but she does it anyway. There is October rain clinging to her skin and it's cold, but she thinks the skin on his bare shoulder is exponentially colder. Naruto needs her to save Sasuke, but she has this horrible feeling that there is nothing she can do. She can't help this dark boy if he won't let her.

He isn't pushing her away, but he isn't reacting. She can't tell if this is good or bad. As an experiment, she swallows her shier tendencies and presses a kiss to his shoulder blade. He still doesn't react and the inaction screams at her that nothing is getting through to him. A lump forms in her throat as she realizes this.

What if nothing ever reaches him again? What if he is like this for the rest of his life, all because Itachi walked away and Fugaku saw fit to force higher expectations on his remaining son? What if he has died, that the form before her is nothing more than an empty shell?

Something in her snaps and she wraps her arms around him. It is awkward, as she is standing more to his side than one should be for a proper hug, but this isn't a proper hug because this is a desperate attempt to throw a lost boy a spider silk thread to cling to so she can try to save him.

She didn't say anything—can't really. The only things she could think of were lies through and through. She adjusts her hold on him and presses her cheek to his shoulder, tears welling up when she realizes that she can't really feel him breathing.

A tear falls and she almost hears the crack when the warmth reaches the cold of his skin. There's a shaky breath and they both fall. Her knees hit the floor painfully, but she doesn't let go. If she does, he might fall apart.

"Sakura?"

"Yeah?"

There's a pause, then, "Lie to me."

She stills completely. Three words tell her how bad the situation really is. Three words and she has to breathe very, very carefully. If she doesn't, the dam might break and she will break and there will be more tears than there are raindrops in the October rain outside. Everything is so very wrong and she doesn't know what she's supposed to do. All she has to direct her in this murky territory are his words, so she does as he asks.

She will lie to him, because that is what he wants her to do.

"Everything will be okay, I promise."


	2. the heavens stroll inside of me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years after he ran away, Uchiha Sasuke returns to Konoha to find that nothing is the same. Modern day AU.

It's been a long time. He's not sure how long it's been, but he knows it's been long enough that he can't really remember what she looked like before. When he tries to remember, all he sees is a flash of pink and a little green he always thought was way too bright to be natural. There's maybe a hint of a smile, but it's so bright in his memories that he has to shrink away from the thoughts before they blind him.

He knows she's not the same. Even if he can't really recall what she was like before he left, he knows she's not the same girl he left waiting at home.

He tries to remember why he left. He was nineteen and he just needed to  _run_. But that was then and this is now. Now he and she are twenty-four and everything is different. He's back and she should still be waiting for him. Everything should be just as it was. Yes, he left in the car he traded in Suna for the bike he has now, but he's back and that's all that matters. Everything can go back to the way it was now.

But she's not waiting anymore.

It's like he was never there to begin with.

Though the locks are pulled back, he can tell the springtime strands are longer than they were but still just as glaringly pink as they have always been. Those supernatural eyes are still just as green and that smile is brighter than he remembers it ever being. She's beautiful in such an unorthodox way. Her forehead is too big and her eyes are too innocent and that hair is just obnoxious, but she's beautiful all the same. There's this light that shines about her, dragging him in like the dreamer seeking the stars.

But he's never been a dreamer and he's seeing the cold reality of his actions through the bitter winter air.

She's smiling brighter for  _him._  She was always so full of light for him, yes, but for this man who isn't him she's shining in a way he didn't think possible. It's not right. She's supposed to be waiting for him because that was what she said. She looked him in the eye five years ago and told him that she loved him, that she always would so why is she sitting there in the arms of another man—and  _that_  man, for that matter—as if he were never a part of her life?

He can hear her laughing. It's such a painful sound because he's not the one causing it.

"It's your fault, you know."

He turns to glare at the man who brought him here. This is his cousin, yes, and their faces are so much alike and yet they are so different. This man of the unmoving river has always been like her. He's supposed to be bright. He's  _that_ man's best friend, yin and yang and all that weird shit his mother likes but he has never cared for. This man beside him is supposed to be to his brother what the idiot is to him.

He is not supposed to be the dark one that tells him about this tragedy.

She is smiling and laughing and looking like she's completely in love and it's like he was never a part of her life. Instead, it's  _him_. How could this happen? Yes, he left, but why  _him_? She was never supposed to move on, to forget about him.

But she has and the evidence is glaring at him through the bitter winter air.

"They were both so broken," Shisui speaks in low, accusing tones, "No, they were  _shattered_  by what you did. They were lucky to find each other because neither one was able to pick up the pieces alone."

She's sitting there on the park bench he remembers standing next to when he walked away from her that last time. She's sitting there wrapped up in her black peacoat and vanilla scarf, a cup of what he knows is a strong black tea held in that little hand that was once held in his, fingers laced together. She's sitting there on the park bench he left her at with her black coat, vanilla scarf, strong black tea and she's all wrapped up in  _his_  arms.

The sight makes him ill. He wishes he never made the horrible choice he did five years ago. He wishes he never left and he wishes he never returned. He knows he can't leave now, though. His mother's already seen him and he just can't hurt that woman again.

She would never recover. She's his mother, after all.

But this woman? This woman he just knew would wait for him when he left that wicked summer night, but this woman recovered. She recovered and she found someone else.

And that someone else just happened to be  _him_.

His brother.

A tiny voice in the back of his head told him he very much desired a hole to curl up and die in.

He left her five years ago. Five years, seven months, seven days, and probably seven hours ago he left her standing alone on that wicked, wicked summer night. For five long years, he's searched for himself and all he found was this woman with springtime written in her features. She is it and she doesn't even know. She never will from the way things look. He's come back for her, to be with her and she's with  _him_.

"You did this," Shisui hisses.

He can't tell if his cousin is blaming him or just wanting him to feel ashamed. He thinks it's the latter. Shisui has always been sadistic like that. He enjoys taking revenge in the form of mental anguish like this.

He hurt Shisui's best friend, and this is how he is paying for it.

This woman he came back for isn't going to return to him and he knows it. Rather than wait and let the feeling of wanting to die grow anymore, he turns on his heel to walk away. He'll face her and  _him_ another time. He'll talk to them when the glaring truth that he screwed up isn't so hard to deal with.

He walks away, never noticing the way his brother has noticed him. He walks, and Itachi says nothing. There's nothing left to say.


	3. there's a she-wolf in disguise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a reason Sasuke hates parties. Modern day AU.

He hates parties like this. For a moment, he wonders why he didn't go with his brother to—

Well, no, he does know why. It's  _Itachi_  and he can't be caught dead spending time outside family functions with his brother. It goes against the rules of nature.

But then that leaves him  _here_  at this party at this house and he's completely and utterly alone.

Fun.

He came with Naruto, but the idiot is nowhere to be found. He thinks he might be off wooing that shy indigette, but there's really no telling. He never knows what that idiot is thinking, or if the blonde is even capable of thinking. The two have known each other for most of their lives, so perhaps he should just admit that he knows his best friend is incapable of intelligent thought.

"Sasuke!"

He glances over through the hazy air to find the other idiot, the one who owns the house, waving him over to the dining room. Kiba's grinning like a fool with a deck of cards in hand and two girls sitting at the table behind him.

"We're playing poker, you want to join?" one of the girls challenges. He doesn't know how he knows it's a challenge until he sees the dangerous glint in her ruby red eyes. He's seen her before. She's the wicked girl Suigetsu has been warning him about since the beginning of summer.

What is her name? Kallen? Kana? Kaede?

"Karin," she gives, and he thinks she should have fangs. She doesn't and that's maybe a shame. He watches as she points to the quiet one beside her, "This is my cousin, Sakura."

The cousin looks harmless. Her pink hair is pulled back and her eyes are too bright and too green and she's really… _cute_. Pretty, even. She's smiling in a way that seems so sweet, as if she's the angel to her cousin's demon. It's rather disarming to see someone so innocent looking in the midst of this crowd. Her cousin must have dragged her here the way the idiot dragged him here.

Kiba slings his arm around his shoulders, pointing a motor oil stained finger at him, "This prick's Sasuke. Let's have fun."

There's something about his friend's grin that has him nervous and nearly running, but then he sees the way the pretty girl isn't afraid and so he sits down. It can't be that bad if she's playing, right? So he sits down across from her where he can see those too green eyes.

Kiba shuffles the cards and pretty soon he has two in front of him. He takes a look and realizes that he has a fairly decent hand before he realizes that he never asked what the bets were being placed with. How stupid could he have been? He knows better than to enter into things with Kiba in charge unless he knows all the details. And that Karin girl still has Suigetsu wrapped around her talon-ended finger.

But then, Sakura doesn't seem worried. She seems so sweet and innocent, so how bad can it possibly be if she's playing and isn't scared? She's Karin's cousin and so she should know the dangers. It can't be that bad, he decides, not with her involved. As if to reinforce this idea, she glances up at him with that too bright smile in place.

He thinks his heart might have just remembered that it actually can beat.

Kiba flips the cards over and when no one folds, he adds another to the list.

"I'm out," Karin whistles, tossing her cards over into the empty space next to his hands. There's another card and Kiba's out. He knows his hand is good and so he stays, especially since Sakura's still in. Even if he loses, the loss can't be too bad because it's her and she's so sweet and pretty and definitely not evil.

"Well, what have you got?"

He flips his cards, revealing the flush he's been dealt to more whistles from the demon girl and a few from the dog boy. He looks up at the pretty girl, a ghost of a smirk in his eyes, "What were the bets?"

He should have asked earlier, he knows, but he really wants to talk to this girl. She's so different from everything and everyone he's ever seen and she's made his heart remember that it's supposed to beat and yet he's not cursing his hormones for just waking up after being dormant for the entirety of his adolescence and there's a gleam in her eye…

There's a gleam in her eye.

That can't be good.

She smiles so sweetly, but there's still that wicked gleam in her too green eyes as she flips her cards to reveal the  _straight_  flush she's been holding onto.

"Well," she starts, "First, you can take off your pants."


	4. a combination of the strong and lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovery is never easy. Modern day AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prequel to 'the heavens stroll inside of me"

She hates Ino's parties. Really, genuinely hates them. In particular she hates the ones the blonde picked up during her childhood overseas.

Like this one.

Halloween.

She tugs at the uncomfortable red fabric she has been forced into. It is barely covering her torso and the pants are wide and loose. She thinks Ino might have squealed something about a woman named "Jasmine" when forcing the pinkette into the costume. She doesn't particularly care. Rather, all she cares is that she is freezing in the Pig's house as she tries to find somewhere safe to retreat to.

It always goes like this. Ino throws a party, forces Sakura into clothing she doesn't like, and Sakura proceeds to disappear into a dark corner to wait out the storm when the blonde isn't looking. She doesn't know why the blonde won't accept her dislike of these tedious events.

It's the people she really doesn't like. Ino's friends tend to be loud and while she likes most of them when everyone is in their proper places, she doesn't like them when it's dark and the air is heavy and everyone is pressed together and it's all just way too close for comfort.

She shivers, knowing she is wearing far too little clothing for the death of October. She doesn't like the costume because she doesn't get the reference to the foreign film (at least she thinks it's a film; she didn't get out much as a child). She doesn't like the costume or the party because she knows why Ino is doing this. She is doing this because she knows her friend has been hurt and she wants to bring her spirits up.

But this doesn't work for Sakura. She's not the kind to get her heart broken and then go to a party and everything is sunshine and daisies again. It's not that simple. And this is a horrific injury she bears and her heart is going to take a lot longer to heal.

How does one heal when something like this happens? Here she is, aged nineteen and freezing in a skimpy costume for a holiday she doesn't understand at a party she doesn't want to be at and there's this big gaping hole where her heart used to be whole but now it's just little pieces digging into the rest of her to remind her that there is something horribly, horribly wrong and she hates it. She doesn't know whom she hates more. Her or  _him_.

He left. He left to go find himself or some other existential crap like that. He left. She knows it's all about growing up and discovering who he is, but all she can think of is that he left  _her_. He looked her in the eye on that godforsaken summer night and told her the plain truth.

He didn't like his life.

She is—was—a part of that life.

So that's what it boils down to. He was never happy and now he's gone. She was never good enough and now he's gone. He doesn't love her. Now she just has to convince herself she doesn't love him.

October is dying a bitter death around her, the air freezing and the wind tearing as she steps out into Ino's backyard to find the old rickety swing she knows is tied to the grand oak in the corner. It's there, one of the few constants in her life, and it takes her into its embrace without protest. She thinks she must look pathetic. She's a pink-haired girl wearing what can only be described as a slave girl costume in the midst of the tenth month's ending days sitting on a rotting swing when there's a warm party just a few steps away from her. How sad.

She's just a lonely girl with a broken heart, but is it really that?

He left to find himself and that someone apparently isn't with her. It's not like she expected perfection or anything. They're only nineteen but still they were Sasuke and Sakura. They were the Golden Couple to which everyone else compared their own relationships. They weren't supposed to end one terrible night in summer because he was feeling lost and felt like running away.

"Coward," she mumbles.

"I hope I'm not."

She jolts at the familiar voice. She knows that lilting tone and she  _loathes_ it because he sounds so much like the bastard who left her in this condition. She glances up only to find that yes; Uchiha Itachi was standing before her, looking just as apathetic as his stupid little brother.

She scowls, "What are you doing here?"

He gives her a look and she understands. This departure has hurt him too because it means he wasn't a good enough role model for his baby brother. It means he has failed as a brother just as she has failed as a girlfriend. They both have shattered mirror-hearts with shards sticking into the rest of them so they can never forget the pain of this tragedy.

She blushes in shame and moves over, knowing that he is just skinny enough to sit on the wide swing beside her. He takes the offered seat, and she notices that he has something tucked under his arm, but she doesn't ask.

She doesn't pry.

Neither does he.

What is there to say? They can ask questions. She knows he knows that she was the last to see Sasuke before he left. She knows that he knows that they are both failures because this was never meant to happen.

He holds out the something tucked under her arm, holding the plastic open and taking one of the sweets from inside. She takes one, turning over the little cookie in her hand. It is stuffed with orange and marked with something that is probably a bat.

She takes a bite and nearly cringes. The cookies are horribly stale and a look to him tells her that he knows it too. Still, neither one says anything. It's better in the silence because then they don't have to hear the heartbreak in their voices. They don't have to avoid saying that name that makes them both so frail and lost when all they want to be is strong and found.

So they sit on the rickety old swing, freezing in the middle of October's dying breaths and eating stale Halloween Oreos because there is simply nothing else they can do. They are brother and lover no more. They are only two more of the strong and lost now, so they stay on that swing in silence because there is nothing else for them to do.


	5. kick off your stilettos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke has just returned home and all Sakura can think about is violence. Canon AU.

She wants to know how it came to this. Of all the things that could possibly have happened, this is the last thing she ever truly expected.

How awkward.

It shouldn't be. Sasuke is back and the team is whole and she just  _freezes_. She can't talk to him; can't let herself become vulnerable like that. It isn't an option anymore. She can't be so weak; she can't fight because she can fight and she isn't the damsel in distress.

There's this darkness and it's killing her. It's not from Sasuke or the Kyuubi or the Akatsuki or anything else in her life.

It's from her.

She's the darkness and it's killing her because she just wants to destroy-slaughter-annihalate-exterminate-end-delete-crush-break-tear- _destroy_  and she knows she's going mad and it scares her more than seeing Naruto lose control of that damn fox. She can feel the raucous hum in her blood and just knows that one of these days she is going to snap and the aftermath is not going to be pretty. It's going to be a horrible nightmare, a twisted trip through the looking glass gone wretchedly awry. She feels it every time she takes a weapon into her hand, every time she's hovering over a fading life with the intent to save. She knows that desire to kill is there, marionette strings just waiting to tug at her aching bones.

The darkness is closer to the surface when she's near her prodigal teammate. Like now. He's sitting just one seat away from her as they try to act normal for Naruto. He's so close she can feel the heat radiating off his body, as if the fire his clan adores is simmering just beneath his skin. She tries to focus on the blonde and what he's saying but she just can't.

She can't because Sasuke is back and she is drowning in him. It's the way his chakra is suffocating to be around and the way he always seems to be there. It's the way he always knows what to say to bring out the bitch in her and how he's so good at just ignoring her. He is everywhere and she is nowhere and she just wants to tear him down because she needs to breathe again.

She does everything she can to remain indifferent, but it's not easy. She has to keep up the façade of sweetness and innocence. Kakashi may know about the darkness, but Naruto can't know. She has to keep this one thing a secret from her brother, so she suffers in silence with her plastic smiles in place as she tries to act like there's nothing wrong with Sasuke being back.

Because really, what is there to be mad about? Yes, he left for six years and then came back after killing his brother (though she has questions about that, given what she knows about Itachi's medical records). Yes, he said the two most enigmatic words possible before knocking her out and leaving her on a bench. Yes, he routinely calls her "weak" and "pathetic", and he has that fucking smirk she just wants to smash through the back of his head…

She might have a few anger management problems, but it's his fault for bringing out the darkness in her. It's her fault for letting him get to her. It's his fault for leaving. It's her fault for falling for him. It's his fault for coming back. It's her fault for not getting over him.

He reaches across her to hand something to Naruto and she just wants to break that arm with the delicately defined muscles and the mesmerizing seals for weapons marring the very pretty alabaster skin. She knows she can do it. She's a medic and given that his guard isn't quite as high as it normally is, she knows she can easily hurt him— _kill_ him—and he wouldn't be able to react. His pretty little eyes wouldn't catch the movement if she were to just reach out and flick her finger.

There might be something wrong with her. The darkness is clawing at her, telling her that one day the dam must break and when that day comes, she will destroy everything that is Sasuke.

She turns slightly, only to find those dark eyes fixed on her. There's something in them that she doesn't like and she has to look away before the darkness breaks free.

One of these days, she will destroy him. She just has to make sure he doesn't destroy her first.


	6. experiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura is leaving. Modern day AU.

There are times when he wonders if it's even worth the trouble it takes to get out of bed in the morning. This is definitely one of those times. It's hard not to know when these times happen. This time, for instance was signaled by the very angry (and sub-textually concerned) text he got from the idiot this morning. He knows something is going to go horribly, horribly wrong, but he might just be a little masochistic, so he goes to the place described by the idiot in the foreboding text.

And it is just the way he described. It's just the way he remembers it being too, all those wonderful summers ago when he stumbled across a brightly colored girl swinging across the monkey bars. He might have fallen for her then, but that doesn't really matter because he knows he is irrevocably in love with her now.

And everything is as it was because there she is, his brightly colored girl, sitting on top of the monkey bars she used to swing across.

He knows he is irrevocably in love with this girl ( _woman_ ) but he has yet to tell her. He thinks he will today, once he finds his voice. Right now, though, he's stricken silent—more so than his usual state of self—by the sheer beauty of the image. His brightly colored girl is sitting on top of the bright blue monkey bars, her white shirt so bright against everything. He can see her bare legs and knows without really thinking about it that she's wearing the cutoffs she's been living in since summer began.

She's beautiful, from the roots of her naturally pink hair to the tips of her midnight painted toenails peeking out from beneath her sandals. He can't imagine life without her- doesn't want to even consider it.

She's his only weakness and he will do everything he can to keep her that way. He's in love with her, after all, and being in love with someone means giving someone the power to destroy you.

He doesn't want to lose her. He knows he can't. He's imagined losing his parents, his brother, his best friend, and that always hurts but never quite the same as the idea of losing _her_. Losing her, his brightly colored girl, would be like the universe ending. He can't imagine anything worse—doesn't want to. He thinks he might have to steal her away under the cover of night if he thinks about it too much because he really, really wants her to stay in his life.

He remembers the one time they did run away together. It was right after her parents and elder sister died and she just couldn't handle being in that small apartment that suddenly seemed too big anymore. So he—not the blonde best friend they shared, because he was out of town visiting his mother's family that weekend—climbed up to her bedroom window and broke her out. He snuck her back into his family's home and into the attic where they hid out for three days until his cousin discovered them.

For years, she and he have been  _them_ , but not in the way that he wants them to be and so he is there, following the directions given by the idiot's worried text and standing on the edge of their playground, just watching his brightly colored girl sitting on top of the monkey bars and forgetting that there is a reason why he is there. There is something wrong, supposedly, but he doesn't really care about that so long as his colorful girl and he are okay by the end of this discussion.

"Sakura," he calls, calmly because he is never anything but calm. The realm of energetic belongs to the idiot and the world of ferocity belongs to his colorful girl. He is the calm one.

She doesn't turn to face him; rather, she stays with her pink hair and her white shirt and her bare legs swinging in the air. He thinks this is strange because she has never ignored him before; that's part of what drew him to her all those years ago when all of the world was forgetting him in favor of his prestigious prodigal brother. She had been the only one to stop in that messy world and ask him how he was doing.

He thinks he fell for her then.

Since she isn't going to come down to him, he clambers up to sit next to her on top of the old blue monkey bars, the tire chips lining the ground a mess of black stars glittering in the summer heat. He settles into place next to her because that's where he belongs, just as she belongs next to him because he is who he is and she is his brightly colored girl. She is the bright soul that breaks the monotony of his life.

"Naruto called," he alters. It's well known that the blonde idiot doesn't call anyone, instead sending text after text like the one that brought him here.

"Shisui called," she explains.

He nearly falls off of the monkey bars. He knows his brightly colored girl has been taken in by his dark family because some of them see the value and see that he and she belong together and why is his cousin and brother's best friend calling her? As far as he knows, Shisui and Itachi have nothing to do with her. It's just his mother and his aunt and maybe a distant female cousin or two that like her.

It's not the men.

It shouldn't be the men.

Why is Shisui calling his brightly colored girl? It's not right because Itachi left Konoha for Ame years ago and Shisui went with him because Shisui was more a brother to the quiet man than he has ever been and he shares both a mother and a father with Itachi.

"Akatsuki is offering me an internship for next year with Akasuna no Sasori."

His heart shudders. He knows this is a good thing because she is Haruno Sakura and she is brilliant with medicine and medical research and she's going away to Ame next year.

He knows about this internship. It's what took his brother and Shisui away. They say it's only for three years, but then three years turns into five, then eight, then it's 'maybe I'll be home for week or two this winter.'

"Are you going?"

"Do I have a reason to stay?"

He wants to grab her shoulders and shake her until she falls off the monkey bars and back to planet earth so maybe his voice can reach her when he explains that he is right there and he wants her to stay.

The words are on the tips of his lips, but she speaks before him.

"I give up, you know."

Give up? Give up on what? He can't think, so he focuses on the chapped skin of her lips and the bright green of her eyes and the vivid pink of her hair and yes, this is his brightly colored girl, but it can't be because she  _doesn't give up_.

On anything.

Not on Naruto, not on Hinata, not on Naruto and Hinata. Not on saving that pig from the farmer who was going to turn it into food back when they were kids and Ton-Ton was still with them. Not on making that cake for his mother's birthday, not on getting into Suna U for college (which she didn't go to; she just applied to prove she could get in).

Not on him.

She never gave up on him so what was it—

There's a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach because he can't help but feel that his planned confession is perhaps a bit too late. Hasn't that what the idiot has been telling him? He's always written that off as the blonde's insistence that he start dating because it's weird that Naruto is dating and he isn't.

"Sakura?"

She turns to face him then, and he sees the bright pink of her hair fly against the darkening sky, "I've waited for you for years now. I've been the good best friend, always making sure I'm there for you and all I've wanted was for you to see that I'm in love with you.

"I can't do this anymore. I stayed in Konoha for you, I've done everything for you and you don't even notice me," she shrugs. "So I give up. I'll be in Ame by the time school starts up again. You'll never have to see me again."

"Sakura," he mutters, his disbelief keeping him quiet because this cannot be happening.

She smiles sweetly, his brightly colored girl once more before she leans over and presses her lips to his.

And then she's gone, jumping down from on top of the monkey bars and walking off and away from him, his brightly colored girl no more.

It's a terrible experiment in lifelong love gone wrong and all he can do is lean back across the monkey bars and breathe in the smell of the coming summer squall because what else is there to do?

Some time before the sun sets, he'll reach for his phone and remember what has happened and then it will sink in.

She isn't his brightly colored girl anymore.


	7. trail of blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once again, Sakura has saved Sasuke's life. Canon AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prequel to 'kick off your stilettos'

She remembers a song on the radio that said something about learning how to do the right things by first doing all the wrong things.

She also remembers the lines about funerals and a trail of blood leading the lost back home.

She remembers thinking about him every time she heard that song.

And now here she was, covered in his blood but he was alive and that was all that mattered, even if he weren't going to live for much longer. She knew the execution order was inevitable. The things he's done are absolutely reprehensible. There's no way the city will let him live.

And yet she's sitting against the wall of his hospital room, covered in his blood and she has just  _saved his life_  because that is what she's always done. She saves his life. He gets into trouble and ends up mixed up in something he can't handle and she's there to save him, whether either one of them knows it or not.

She wonders if he ever thinks of her in that dark head of his. She doesn't think so, but she's been wrong about him so many times in the past that it wouldn't surprise her if she were horribly wrong about him this time. She's fairly certain, though, that he never thinks of her anymore.

He probably doesn't even know her name anymore.

And there she is, pathetic ex-teammate and ex-nothing, sitting in the shadows of his silent hospital room, covered in his blood because she just had to save him one more time before it was all over with.

She resolves then and there that when he dies, probably at their ex-sensei's hands, she won't cry. She won't cry when he dies and she won't cry at his funeral. If anything, she'll do her best to feel alive because she'll finally be free of this burden she carries as his savior.

Suddenly, he shifts on the hospital bed and she jumps with what little energy she has left. Her attention is fuzzy and she's having trouble focusing on his form on the bed, but she knows that there is no way he's waking up because most of his blood is on her and she just brought him back to the land of the living so why was he moving around already?

She knows she really shouldn't be surprised. The bastard always was one to recover faster than he should, even if he doesn't have their— _her_ —blonde teammate's demonic healing factor.

She wants to hate him so much but she can't feel anything. She just doesn't have the energy to do it anymore. There's a heaviness around her heart that feels cold and dead. It's all her love for him, she thinks, and it's time to cut it away before it drags her down any more than it already has.

Her back arches as she pushes herself off the floor, doing her best to keep her bloodied hands away from the wall. She leans against it for a second, scowl across her face.

He's so pretty, lying there weak and recovering. She could kill him now and be done with it. Everything would be so much simpler if she just killed him—if she didn't go and save his pathetic life one more time. What would everyone say if she did it? Would they not believe it? Would they lock her up?

Would she be killed?

There's a tickling in her chest that bubbles up and suddenly she's laughing at the absurdity of it all.

Sasuke's back and alive—because of Naruto and because of her—and she's thinking about killing him. How many years of her life has she spent pining away for him, only for it all to come to this?

She's standing in a dark hospital room with a recently almost dead Uchiha, covered in his blood, and she wants nothing more than to kill him. It would be easy to do. She wouldn't even have to mess with using chakra. She could just put an air bubble into his bloodstream and let it do the work for her.

She pushes away from the wall, staggering over to him. Her hands leave bloodstains on his pillows as she leans over him. He looks so fragile and something in her breaks at the thought that he's only sleeping so heavily because of the drugs and exhaustion. If not for those things, he would be wide awake.

He wouldn't trust her enough to sleep around her.

"I hate you," she whispers, lips just a breath away from his. Smiling wryly, she straightened and walked away, a trail of blood where her fingers trace against his sheets.


	8. baby do me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sasuke is maybe accidentally seductive. Canon AU.

 

He's swinging that stupid rope. She doesn't know why he still dresses like that anymore. He's a Konoha nin again. There's no need for him to hold onto his Oto/Taka/whatever-the-hell-they-were-called era clothes.

And yet he still wears the open shirt, dark pants, and that damnable purple rope.

Which he swings.

Absentmindedly, of course, because this is Sasuke and the bastard probably doesn't even know what that thing between his legs is for.

It's just—and Sakura wants to bang her head against the closest wall for even thinking this—he looks like those male strippers she saw once on a mission and it's…well…his shirt  _is_ hanging open.

She groans, prompting her blonde best friend to swing around on her stool to face her. "Something wrong?"

She glares.

And then Ino looks around and when those blue eyes start to gleam and a smirk starts to form, Sakura feels like crawling in a hole to die.

"He could make a lot of money stripping." Ino muses, leaning over and wrapping her arm around Sakura's shoulders. "I mean, he's gorgeous and he's clearly a natural."

She really regrets that honesty policy she and Ino started up when they were kids. They can't lie to each other and they can't withhold information, which means that when Ino caught Sakura drooling in a daze six months ago, the pinkette was obligated to tell her the complete truth.

Sasuke was swinging that purple rope around his waist as he leaned against a wall, dark eyes focused on the sky and his shirt hanging wide open (and it was a fairly windy, and sunny, summer day) and he just—

Sakura almost doesn't want to think it. He's her teammate. She should be thinking of him as a brother, not as an inadvertent exotic dancer.

Kakashi has corrupted her. Ino has corrupted her. Tsunade has corrupted her and hell, even though she has very little to do with the woman,  _Anko_ has corrupted her. She used to be such a sweet, innocent little virgin.

Now she's just a virgin with a very dirty mind.

It's horrible. It makes it sheer torture to be anywhere within sight of him whenever he's bored because he inevitably picks up the tail of that purple bow in his left hand and just starts twirling it in a manner more befitting someone who would be taking that right hand and pulling off that irritating open white shirt and…

She's screwed.

"Ino, I am not going to suggest to my teammate that he give up being a shinobi so he can go be a stripper."

Her friend scoffs and flips her hair. "That's a shame. I'd pay  _anything_  to see  _that_  take off his clothes and swing around a pole."

Sakura turns green. "Ino!"

"Hey." The blonde grins. "If you won't suggest it, then can I? Consider it my community service for the century."

She reaches out and grabs her friend before Ino does something they'll both regret, "You are  _not_  telling my teammate that he should be a stripper."

. 

She really, really hates her job some days.

Like when Ino tries to tell her teammate to be a stripper, or when Kakashi is being perverted, or when Naruto destroys something.

Or when Sasuke backs up the idea that he would make a great stripper.

They're sitting in the woods on their way back from a mission and he's twirling that damn rope. She tried to destroy it, once, but he somehow managed to evade the attack.

She stares at the fire, doing her best to ignore the sound of the rope swinging through the air. There's an uncomfortable tingling in her body and she has to shift in her seat to try and make it go away.

It just gets worse.

She licks her lips and lets her gaze flicker over to him. He's just too  _pretty_  to be a shinobi.

"Sakura."

She stiffens, looking up at his eyes. "Yes?"

"Is there a reason you keep looking at me?"

"There's nothing else to look at?" She tries, but it sounds like a question and her voice trembles just a little too much.

An eyebrow arches. He doesn't believe her and suddenly the night feels cold. If he finds out…

He won't understand.

She brightens up at that thought. This is Sasuke. He probably thinks she has a gnome between her legs because as smart as he is, he's still more clueless than Sai when it comes to sex and how men and women interact with each other.

"Could you stop that?"

He just gives her a look and keeps spinning the rope.

Sakura sighs. "The rope, I mean. Stop messing with it; it's distracting."

He does, with the clueless expression she so rarely sees in him. He blinks a couple of times and she begins to relax.

Then he smirks, eyes traveling across her body.

She stiffens again, thinking about the position she's sitting in. Her hands are clasped together towards the knee and her thighs are pressed tightly together and…

_Shit_.

Maybe he's not as clueless as she thought.

"Why haven't you mentioned it before?"

Because it's hot? Because she doesn't want to deal with this embarrassment? Because she's always been tempted to tell him to just  _strip already_?

"It's never been this distracting before."

The smirk grows, just a little.

She slumps in defeat. He knows and now she's going to pay. She hears him shift and chances a glance.

He's still smirking and staring at her—

His shirt is off.

Sakura bites her lip and buries her face in her hands, cursing beautiful men and purple ropes.

 


	9. snowflake butterflies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sasuke does not remember. Canon AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This actually belongs to a collection of stories written as a 2010 Christmas present for the founder of the writer's group I belong to. This particular piece was one of three that I submitted.

He isn't entirely sure where he is. He knows it's a familiar place because the pretty woman in the white uniform who comes and takes care of him everyday smells familiar. He knows there's something else about her, be it her odd pink hair or her bright green eyes, but he knows he's seen her before. She's just…different. He feels like her hair should be longer, her eyes happier, her smile brighter.

But she's still familiar, even with her short hair, sad eyes, and sadder smile. He just wants to remember who she is, really. It's painful as it can be, knowing something but not really knowing. He can remember the basic things, after all. He knows his name is Uchiha Sasuke, though he can't remember anything about his family or his life, except there is the fuzzy idea that he might have someone, a brother, but mostly there's this horrible sadness that swallows him whole every time he tries to think about them and his childhood. He knows he fights, but he can't remember for whom or what or  _why_ , though there is regret and more sadness when he thinks of this and that is one of the reasons why he believes it to be true.

Even then, the only reason he knows he fights is because he still has the power of language at his disposal and he knows what words come up the most in his head and terms used for battle seem to be the most common. There's also a desire to attack every time someone other than the pretty woman with the pink hair and bright green eyes or the man with the blonde hair and big blue eyes or the old man with the mask and one eye—both of the men are just as familiar as the pretty woman—approaches him. He doesn't like sharp things coming near him or sudden movements and his reflexes and the strength in his body suggests someone who attacks for a living.

He's not sure he likes that. The idea of fighting, of killing, it doesn't sit well with him. The thought of taking a life leaves a bitter metallic taste on his tongue.

The pretty woman is sitting next to his bed. She has just finished her check-up and now she sits with an apple and knife in hand. She expertly peels it in one cut and slices out a piece, holding it out to him on the tip of the knife and he is hit by a wave of nostalgia for something he can't remember. There's the distinct impression that they have done this, this bedside apple routine, a thousand different times, but it's all a grand blank in his memory that can't possibly be a memory anymore for there is nothing to remember in his head.

He takes the apple slice, eating it carefully. He knows he has met this beautiful woman before, can think of a thousand different ways to describe her in ways that he couldn't possibly know if he wasn't acquainted with her outside of this hospital setting.

He's tried to think about it before.

The last time he tried, he ended up in a coma that lasted two weeks.

He can't help but wonder what that means. This woman has the strongest affect on him. Thinking about the blonde man or the strange one with the mask merely makes him nauseous and gives him a nasty headache. There might be a feeling of regret, depending on what prompted the thinking, but that's less common than the pain and sickness.

She hands him a second slice of apple and the questions are on the tip of his tongue. They make the apple taste like ash in his mouth, which leads him to wonder just how it is that he knows what ash tastes like. Then that feeling returns, the one that tells him there is something missing from his bloodstream and he drops the apple slice to the bed, his fingers coming together to form the symbols his muscles remember but he really doesn't.

Small hands cover his, "Don't do that."

"Why not?" it's the first time he's spoken to her in over a week, but she doesn't seem surprised. Instead, there's that tiny flinch that happens every time she hears his voice.

"It won't do anything."

There's an unspoken  _not anymore_  at the end of that, but he doesn't ask her about it as she hands him the forgotten apple slice.

He doesn't ask her about a lot of things. If he's completely honest, it's because he's terrified of what the answers might be. He often has nightmares about blood on his hands and the feeling that he has just done something terribly wrong. There are also the dreams about this pretty woman and how she used to be so happy and then the feeling that he's the one responsible for this permanent sadness and that just makes the pain of not remembering worse because then he starts to question whether or not he ever wants to remember.

He does want to know about this beautiful woman who hands him another slice of apple. He knows the best way to do that is to remember, but he doesn't want to because he's scared to death of discovering just what he did that made her so sad.

So he doesn't remember.

He'll settle for learning everything anew, because that's the only way he can imagine her being happy again. If he puts the past he doesn't know completely behind him, will things be better?

She hands him the last of the apple, and he's just barely touching it when he asks, "Why do you never eat any?"

"Excuse me?"

"The apples," he clarifies, "You always bring them but you never eat any. You always give them to me."

There's that sad, sad smile again, and it's so sweet it's heartbreaking, "Just a habit."

She offers the slice again, the knife coming a little closer, but he isn't afraid. When the knife is in her hand, he feels like that's okay.

She won't hurt him.

He takes the apple slice, but instead of eating it, he holds it out for her. She looks at it for a few seconds, something flashing through those bright green eyes and there's the suggestion that he's breaking a pattern by doing this but he really doesn't care. All he cares about is that after a moment, a ghost of a happy smile graces her features and she takes the apple slice, eating it with questions in her eyes.

But there's something else in her eyes that he isn't quite sure about. He thinks it's called hope, but this is tempered with something else: hopelessness, maybe?

Before now, he didn't think those two things could coexist.

Another week passes, and the cold at his one window becomes more intense. The blonde man comes to visit him, regaling him of tales from around the village, but to no avail. He can tell the blonde man is keeping something from him, a series of stories that relate to him, but he doesn't push it.

That doesn't keep him from breaking the pattern again.

"What's her name?"

The blonde man looks confused for a moment before brightening in a fox-like grin, "My girlfriend? Her name is Hyuuga—"

"The woman who comes here," he cuts in, "The one with the pink hair."

The blonde man's exuberance fades a little, his expression almost grim and he knows then that the lost memories of this woman and this man and the man with the mask are the things that are hurting everyone the most. He's supposed to know who they are.

He realizes then that they must be people who were important to him.

"Sakura," the blonde man replies, "And I'm Naruto."

There are meanings to those names, but he can't grasp them in his empty mind. He says nothing for the rest of the visit, but the blonde's—Naruto's—usual energy has dissipated with his question.

Another week passes and he only sees the beautiful woman— _Sakura_ —and he sometimes wonders if she is only there because it is her job. He doesn't like that thought. He wants her to be there because she wants to be there, not because she's required to be. What he wants is for her to want to spend time with him because he wants to spend time with her, relearning all the things he can't remember.

Another week, another seven sunsets without any visitors except her and then he's waking up in the middle of the night. It's so dark, but he knows it's her because he can smell her. That gentle scent of apples and flowers that he knows is familiar to him is all around him as his eyes open. She's leaning over him, a happiness he thought she'd lost in her eyes.

"Come on," she whispers, handing him something he recognizes as clothing. These are far more comfortable than the hospital gown he's been in and he doesn't care that she's in the room as he quickly changes clothes, only pausing to take in the fan on the back of the dark shirt. As he pulls it over his head, she holds out a coat and he notices that she is bundled up against the cold, as if she is going outside.

"Sakura, what's going on?" he asks, not really thinking about the words, but when she tenses, he realizes that this is the first time he has called her by the name Naruto gave her.

She takes a step closer, all happiness gone, "Sasuke, do you know who I am?"

He's not comfortable with this, but he responds, "You're Sakura, the woman who takes care of me here."

It's the most honest answer he can give her, but he can still see her almost crestfallen expression in the dark. She shakes it off, though, and grabs his hand after checking to make sure he was properly dressed. The happiness slowly returns as she leads him out of the hospital and into the courtyard where he occasionally went before it was decided that going outside did nothing for him.

And yet as they step into the freezing air, he can't help but feel something shift inside him as he sees little white flecks floating like butterflies through the air. He knows what this is, remembers the world blanketed with it and remembers how stunning it is when there are no footprints or blood or other disruptions.

"Sakura," he says again, a question in her name.

She drops his hand, spinning away from him, "It's the first snow. I thought you might like to see it."

The hospital is silent and dark around them, the village quiet beyond the walls of the courtyard. Her face is tilted up as she watches the butterfly snowflakes fall from the midnight sky, the orange lamps posted at the sides of the courtyard the only light around.

Her eyes are closed when he steps towards her, his footsteps silent because that is the only way he knows how to move, and when he reaches up to brush his fingers across the blush of her cheek, she flinches, her eyes opening as she moves back by a step.

He follows, both hands coming up to trace her face in the darkness. He's closer to her than he's ever been when her soft voice breaks the winter silence, "Don't."

Her small hands are on his wrists then, halting the movement but not pulling them away from her. She's sad again and he's reminded again that he doesn't like that. He likes her when she's smiling and happy, and he wants to always see her that way but she's just shaking her head, tears like dead snowflake butterflies falling down her cheeks.

"Please don't," she whispers, pleading with him and with her and with the world.

His thumb brushes one of the tears away and she just shakes her head again, pulling his hands away from her, "Stop, Sasuke. This isn't you."

Something bubbles inside him and he wants to ask her who he is. He wants to know who Uchiha Sasuke is and he wants to know why his name sounds unfinished on her lips, like there's a part of it she isn't saying. He wants to ask her how he knows her; who is she to him? He wants to know everything he's forgotten because all he really wants is to see this beautiful woman smile and mean it, but it seems he can't do that without remembering what he did to hurt her.

"Hn," he responds, the sound in his throat more natural to him than actual words, but he has the feeling that she understands exactly what he's trying to say to her.

Her sad smile returns and she moves away from him, her hands on his as she whispers, "This isn't you and you don't know me."

She stays away from him the rest of that night and they stay out until the morning twilight begins to set in, the snowflake butterflies falling around them and coating the world in innocence.

Neither one says a word.

 


End file.
